Look, I'm a geek, I like Gadgets, and I've heard about the Amazon Echo ($179) but when I heard about the Amazon Echo Dot (all the power of the Echo without the speaker) I was all over it (as you might imagine, being a podcaster I have a blue tooth speaker, and some audio equipment laying around). With the black Friday sale making it $39, it was time to jump in the pool. So far, I'm loving it (and I haven't even got into setting up lights, etc).

Currently I can make a shopping list and a to-do list (one of the things that pushed me to buy it). The fact that I can go “Alexa add eggs to the grocery list, and then at the store pull out the app and there they are, I just thought that was cool. I can also have Alec Baldwin wake me up in the morning (I would prefer Scarlet Johansen, but the cool thing is they are always adding more features). I can have Alexa read my twitter updates, and I can customize what news source to use (hotpod even is listed as a source) and walk in and as Alexa “What's new.”

If you want to follow the journey go over to www.alexacast.com (not in iTunes yet, but give me a few days).

Here is the unboxing video, you will see how easy it is to setup. The hardest part is remembering your wi-fi password.